In today’s always connected world, it’s expected that you will get an email as soon as someone has sent it. But with all the junk, spam and unimportant messages from people you know, it’s too much of a hassle to sort through it all every time you check your mail app.

Fortunately, you can set your phone’s email apps to flag emails from certain senders as important and notify you immediately. Read on to find out how to set your smartphone to keep you on top of important emails.

For iPhone or iPad Running iOS 11: Use the Mail app

Your iOS device comes equipped with a default email app called Mail. You can set it to check your incoming email from many popular email services such Gmail, Yahoo and Microsoft Outlook.

Open the Settings app

Scroll down until you find the “Accounts & Passwords” option and tap it

Under Accounts, tap Add Account

You will see a list of popular email services to choose from. Pick one or, if you don’t see yours, choose Other.

Follow the directions for each service you want to add, but generally, you’ll have to provide the name the email is registered under, the email address (john.doe@gmail.com), the password and a description so you can identify it in a list next to other email accounts you may have set up in Mail.

Once set up, open the Mail app, choose the email account from the list that appears and make sure it has synched.

Once it’s set up you can then use Apple’s Mail app to set up a VIP list. A special message tone will sound off so you’re well aware of every important email that comes in that is flagged as from a VIP. To add email addresses to the VIP list:

Open the Mail app

Find an email with a sender that you want to mark as a VIP

Tap on the email address of a sender

Tap Add to VIP

Alternately:

Go to the Mail app’s home screen

Select VIP (if you already have contacts designated as VIP, tap the i in the circle next to VIP )

Tap on Add VIP…

Choose a name from your contact list

Make sure any mail from a VIP appears as an alert on your screen, a notification on your Lock screen and as a custom alert tone:

Launch the Settings app

Select Mail

Tap on Notifications

Tap on VIP

Under Alert Style, choose whether you want Banners, which automatically go away or Notifications, which require you to act before they disappear. Then select from the following options:

For Samsung devices: Use the Email app

Your Android device comes equipped with a default email app called Email. You can set it to check your incoming email from any email service that supports POP3, IMAP or Microsoft Exchange, which means just about any service. To set up your email:

Open the Email app

Select Menu

Select Settings (the gear icon)

Add account

Input your email address and password. The app will try to set up your email automatically, which should work for most email providers. If that fails, you’ll need to manually configure it with your POP3, IMAP or Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync settings. Your email provider will be able to provide those.

To add VIP

Go back to Settings and select Notifications

Turn on email notifications for VIPs

Tap on “Notification Sound” and “Vibrations” to customize the alert

Go back to the main menu

Select VIP

Select the + button

Enter the email address for anyone you want to add to the list or select the person from your Contacts address book

Now when a contact you’ve designated as a VIP emails you, you’ll receive an alert.

For other Android devices: Use the Gmail app

Gmail allows you to set up filters so important emails that come in are auto-labeled and auto-starred, say emails from your boss. Once you set that up, you can then tell your phone to only notify when an email with a certain label arrives and ignore the rest.

The first step is setting up the important email to be auto-labeled and you can’t do this on your phone. You’ll need to access Gmail on a desktop or laptop machine.

Point your browser to gmail.com and sign in.

Find an email from someone you want to be alerted about and open that message

On the upper right-hand corner of the email to the right of the date stamp of the email, you’ll see a downward pointing arrow. Click on that and choose the “Filter Messages Like This” option.

The sender of the message will autofill into the form. Click the “Create filter with this search” link at the bottom of the box.

Check the “Apply the label:” box.

Click on the “Choose Label” drop down and choose “New Label”

In the pop-up box that appears, give the label a name such as “The Boss” and click on “Create”

This will bring you back to the “Apply the label:” box. At the bottom click Create Filter.

Alternately:

Click on the gear icon in the upper right corner of your Gmail inbox and choose Settings from the drop-down

Click on the Filter tab

Scroll to the bottom of the Filter list and click on “Create a new filter”

Type in the email address from the sender you want to be flagged. Click the “Create filter with this search” link at the bottom of the box.

Check the “Apply the label:” box.

Click on the “Choose Label” drop down and choose “New Label”

In the pop-up box that appears, give the label a name such as “The Boss” and click on “Create”

This will bring you back to the “Apply the label:” box. At the bottom click Create Filter.

Now to set up your Android phone to notify when an email comes in that falls under that label.

Open up the Gmail app

Tap on the upper left corner and then on Settings

Select the email account where you’re receiving important email

Make sure Notifications is checked

Scroll down and tap on “Manage labels”

Scroll down your list of labels to find the one you just created and tap on it

You will be asked to Sync the mail for that label to your phone to enable notifications. Tap the sync message, then choose 30 days from the list of sync options.

After it is done syncing, you will see a notification screen. Tap on the “Label notifications” check box.

On this page, you can also customize the sound, set it to Vibrate and enable the phone to play sound/vibrate when each new message arrives.

Hit the back button and check your other labels to make sure notifications are not turned on (“notify once” will appear under the label). By default, your Primary inbox at the top of the list is synced to notify, so you’ll want to tap that and then uncheck the “Label notifications” checkbox.

Congratulations. You are now set up to be alerted as soon as an important email arrives!